The CEO of Space Ventures Investors, Simon Drake, recognised that in the emerging Earth-Moon and CisLunar industry there was an opportunity to create a marketplace. Together with business partner Kevin Mac Gowan, they formed the concept of a Lunar Resources Registry, based on how the terrestrial mining industry operates.
In 2019 Lunar Resources Registry UG (LRR) was accepted into a European Space Agency Business Incubation Centre and built a registry of locations on the Moon for all landers, planned missions and resources zones.
LRR recognised that there are 100s of locations on the Moon that could be explored by Lunar Mining companies and Space Agencies, yet the barrier to entry was too high; one-off commerical missions to the Moon are expensive and if they fail, potential investors and stakeholders see Lunar Missions as too risky.
The concept of ELLLa is to create a cheaper alternative, where mission prices are decreased and goals are based on landing at specific locations.
Early Concepts: CubeSat sized Landers
October 6th, 2021. Letter of Intent Signed to form European Light Lunar Lander Joint Venture.
Berlin Space Consortium, Space Ventures Investors, and Lunar Resources Registry agreed to form a Joint Venture in Europe, to design, manufacture, launch and operate European Light Lunar Landers (ELLLa).
In the following years Berlin Space Consortium developed a preliminary model and development plans, e.g. TLR1-5. This included developing an Autonomous Light Lunar Lander A3L-10, dubbed “Rock Thrush”, for autonomous missions to the Moon including soft landing on the lunar surface and the deployment of small payloads at multiple sites. The A3L-10 concept is a fully autonomous craft that uses a combination of different innovative chemical space propulsion systems.
To reach the lunar surface, LRR will develop a Lunar Space Tug configuration LST-80 that provides reliable, autonomous transfer of the A3L-10 payload from Geostationary Transfer Orbit (GTO) to Low Lunar Orbit (LLO).
March, 2022. ELLLa Space Tug and Landers specification refined.
In 2023 LRR hired BSC to conduct a study on orbital descent profiles of multiple ELLLa from one spacecraft to reach multiple locations on one plane.
LRR has refined the ELLLa concept and is actively raising capital from its own shareholders and funds in Europe, via its parent company Space Ventures Investors.